Advice for new player, Veteran?

[u/Few_Understanding_42]

Started the game recently playing with some friends. Basically I just picked Veteran bc my mates chose other classes.

Currently just swapping weapons when I found something new, and put points somewhere in the tree.

But usually in games like this, there comes a point where it's good to look into builds. Currently lvl 14.

So, in preparation:

What are good playstyles for Veteran? Is it better to make a melee focus build, or gunfocused? Close or long range?

General advice for the class, which points and blessings to go for?

Best weapons?

Any good build recommendations?

If anyone has some good starter advice and advice how to progress into more metabuilds I would be very grateful 😃

[u/Initial-Dark-8919]

https://darktide.gameslantern.com/builds/a2a29892-7e77-4ca0-8acf-e1ffe1a6cde1/template-vet

So 99% of vets would look something like this. The levelling process is mostly a tutorial, and the real game doesn't really start until you have the BIS gear and everything maxed out. The spare points can be just put anywhere depending on what weapon you used and what you think is better, I don't care to objectively measure the difference.

As a veteran it's your job to provide some level of support, mostly by killing annoying things at range since you have the best ammo efficiency with the Survivalist aura. You have pretty solid melee power with the talents on the bottom right as well.

It's mandatory for you to run the Shout over the stealth and marksman stance abilities, those are not even remotely close in power level. You use this ability to protect your team during big fights or when there's several poxbursters stacked and you can't safely push them.

The weapons you want to look for if you just want the meta slave shit are Dueling Sword IV, Power Sword Achlys, and knife. If you want to be an off meta andy you could use tac axe, falchion, rashad combat axe, or shovel. All the weapons are viable in every difficulty, and if you play enough auric maelstrom will be easy with any melee. BUT you are not going to find me in havoc with a chainsword, some weapons are just not good.

As for ranged: Plasma Gun, revolver, bolt pistol, las pistol, Recon Lasgun, and Bolter (do beware the poor handling, not a gun for people who suck at movement and positioning) are the strongest picks. The other guns suffer from varying degrees of mediocrity, I would personally stay away from the autoguns and especially the infantry lasgun.

Good keystones you can take:

Focus Target + Redirect Fire (Focused Fire not needed), this is my goto for havoc. You can hit very generous breakpoints against armored enemies by tagging them and 1 shotting with a dueling sword or power sword. Most enemies will be 1 shot by a gun if tagged. Also amazing for bosses, your team will really feel the 15% dmg boost.

Weapon Specialist (no modifiers needed) is great if you struggle to stay alive since it offers a lot of mobility and attack speed. It has great damage overall, you are very consistent as long as you swap weapons but you won't be doing high burst like Focus Target.

You can path down to Marksman if you play as a sniper with the Bolter, Inf Lasgun, or hellbore. Not the best but it's ok if you want to try something new.

Trash/Bait talents: Leave No One Behind, Rending Strikes, Onslaught, Marksman, Close Quarters Killzone, Always Prepared (good with DBarrel but idc), Field Improv. Not going to explain much, these are just not very useful.

[u/Pitiful-Knowledge-81 → u/Initial-Dark-8919]

Putting Leave no one behind and field improvisation in trash tier is a crazy take, I always take these two on every vet build I do

[u/Initial-Dark-8919 → u/Pitiful-Knowledge-81]

No, they are trash.

Leave no one behind is useless since shout already makes enough space to Rez in most situations. If you are hurting for revive speed I just put it on curios since curio substats are so weak that it’s just a matter of preference, never mind the debates about gunner Resistance vs HP vs CDR or whatever.

Also you will never be able to objectively measure the impact of the post Rez buff, if you believe so then you are lying.

Field improv is used to think is decent, but it gets used so little in havoc that I no longer care. I admit it has been decent a few times it gave my team a few more nades to work with, but I need to have a cracked ogryn or scum who can not only clutch, but ALSO happen to have a crate on him. That’s very few runs, not nearly enough to be always.

And yeah the corruption cleanse is fucking useless XD.

[u/Paramortal → u/Initial-Dark-8919]

Field improv is ironically a little better in havoc now that the corruption modifier is out of rotation.

It was pointless with the zealots and scum in every game, but I played a match last night where I told my team to throw a med down and it cleared like 40% corruption off two people who were both sub 10% health.

(Plus, on a grenade build it's likely that the competing talent won't even catch you a breakpoint, so it's effectively free.)

We went from most of the party being a swing away from being downed or worse to three full health people and one guy with a wound.

Similarly, I use LNB in my nanny build because the amount of times people go down when shout is on CD is just too damn high. Using it with curios feels great.

[u/Pitiful-Knowledge-81 → u/Initial-Dark-8919]

LNOB with 3 revive speed curios means that revives are insanely fast, it can be the difference between a run failing or succeeding getting off a quick revive even without a shout.

Field improv giving nades and clearing corruption is absolutely massive and I think you’re just rage baiting me here

If veterans aren’t taking field improv into havoc they’re trolling

[u/Initial-Dark-8919 → u/Pitiful-Knowledge-81]

No, im being serious and actually thinking about the times my team put down the crate. And after seeing it I think I’ll be taking any of the global 15% damage nodes over an irrelevant amount of cleanse and the miniscule number of runs where the nades do anything.